Don't the networks deliberately schedule shows to run over to foil time-shifting? It seems really counter-productive to me - I'm way more likely to go find the last two minutes online than I am to watch it live the next week.

or my BFF's husband, it provides a great social outlet with a bunch of people who don't drink more than something that seems "preachy", if that is what your brother is afraid of

I know a lot of people who are turned off by the "higher power"stuff, but what that means varies HUGELY by locality. Some meetings are All God All The Time and some just assume that by "higher power" you mean the Flying Spaghetti Monster and that's fine.

The "higher power" stuff would turn my vaguely Satanist brother into PURE RAGE. Plus, like me, he's not a joiner.

Yeah, if he's not a joiner, I don't think it would be helpful to him in the same way it is to BFF's Husband, who is TOTALLY a super joiner.

The "higher power" stuff would turn my vaguely Satanist brother into PURE RAGE.

Ben said one of the kids at school who participates in Young Life asked him if he wanted to come to a meeting, and Ben told him he had plans with Satan that day.

And on that note, this game looks sort of awesome.

When I was a kid, I was totally fascinated by church, because my family didn't go. I used to play with my grandma's missal and pretend to have church! I would also say the rosary. It was kind of weird. And then when I was 12, my babysitters family were part of (and possibly are still part of) this sort of freaky home church called "The Way". I'm not sure if it was really weird or not, but I attended some meetings, and they spoke in tongues, which was a little surprising from people who seemed hippy-dippy.

Don't the networks deliberately schedule shows to run over to foil time-shifting?

That drives me so crazy. Something will run til 8:01 and effectively blocks me from having a season pass to something in the 8:PM slot.

OK, mini-rant, I guess:

So the kiddo has a playdate today with an old friend of his, who lives out of town. His mom & dad were friends with DH and his ex; Dad hired DH for current job, Dad dies tragically, Mom is friends with Ex now.

So. I have NO PROBLEM with playdates. I've met the kiddo before and this kid is perfectly nice, they'll play, whatevs, I'm totally down.

What I do NOT like, and this is waa-waa, my diamond-shoe-ish, is WTFF am I supposed to do with the MOM? I mean, I'm sure she's nice but I have ZERO desire to...what? make decaf, serve a coffeecake and make polite chitchat for...how long? Three hours? 1? 12? I DON'T KNOW.

And it's...also...I can do the polite social chitchat stuff, but I don't like feeling compelled to do it in MY OWN HOUSE. When I have, oh, shit to do. LOTS of shit to do. And this lady (again, I don't know, I am just...cautious) is the Ex's friend, so I feel like I am hosting a spy basically. Which may being doing her a grave disservice, but let's be realistic; she's gonna be giving the Ex the DL.

And whilst I really don't giving a flying fuck, I despise the whole notion of hostessing/time-wasting/potential spy person thing.

Can't she just drop her kid off and go shopping or something? Please? No, really, lady, I AM COOL WITH IT. Go have some me time. You know you want to...

Dressage: GB gets gold, Ger silver and NED bronze. USA winds up in 6th place. One US rider makes it to the freestyle (where the individual medals are decided.) Individual show-jumping finals tomorrow. The freestyle is Thursday.

In theory, I get the sports thing.(the poetry, the ritual, yada, yada, Olbermann-cakes) But it doesn't turn me on that much. I mean, it used to piss me off, actually, cause I felt estranged from my body and, because in crip sports, nobody's ability class quite matched mine so I played against myself more or less(Which is better than playing *with*, okay, never mind) And then, you know, the high school, Mike Love, pep-rally thing. Yuck. I've mellowed on it since then. Even if I feel like America has a fetish I don't understand...